


we hang our hopes on chandeliers

by redandgold



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, German National Team, M/M, and an assortment of people I'm too lazy to tag, id like to apologise to my fun socialist uncle gawwy lineker and my great grandpaw alf ramsey, piss free
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 09:37:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: He looks around him and blinks once, twice, four times.It isn't Bavaria. It isn't even Dortmund.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raumdeuter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raumdeuter/gifts).



> HEPP BIRF MI AMOR!!! today i make for u the age-old horribl bet that was from the derby I fink??? where u asked for historical muppetdad... even though as I wrote it it turned out more like Germ doctor who... anyway I rly rly rly hope u like and loff u very much!!! monches your paws 
> 
> An incrediblllllllll amount of love to [sabbo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets) for actually being the best beta ever (ur always an alpha in my book, FINGERGUNS) I cant thank u enough!!! sabs is primarily responsible for making the ending SO MUCH BETTER than what I had originally and shes a genius  
> also big thank u to [shawon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemoi/works) for being the best cheerleader ever !!! (even if it primarily consists of 'open mouf feed me PISS')  
> xoxo

 

 

 

Long after the singing stops, long after the Italians have finished pumping their fists in the air, Miro takes off his shoes and socks and walks to the centre of the Westfeldenstadion. The grass feels cold beneath his feet. He hasn't done this since he was a boy.

The lights outside are still on, but everything inside is dark. They're waiting for him on the coach. _Take your time_ , someone had said, and _it's not your fault_ , but that isn't the – that isn't. He's lost the final before. He's had to walk past the golden, gleaming trophy first-hand, had to watch someone else lift it in the stadium, not on the television. It ought to be worse that way.

But this –

He's eight years old, and he knows how to say  _ja_ and  _danke_ _._ His hair's growing too long and it tickles his ears. Some people smile at him. Their shirts are black and white and they beckon him to come sit with them. Someone has stumped up a television in the Town Hall for the World Cup, and Germany's in the final. _Füssball?_ They say.

 _Ja,_ he says, and _danke._ The same faces lined the streets all the way to Dortmund, everywhere they went. Staring out of the bus, stepping out of the hotels, the hundreds of people dotted with flags in the air. Hands in the sky. Marble, stone, and iron breaks, but not our love. All things must pass, but we'll stay true to ourselves. _Danke. Danke._

 

*

 

 

The sun is streaming directly into his eyes when he wakes up, forcing him to throw an arm over his face. The shirt on his back is damp from the grass. "Ah, no," he mutters, rolling away to avoid the glare. Had he fallen asleep on the pitch? He'd never hear the end of this. It would be on the front page of _Bild_ by now, the perfect, miserable end to the perfect, miserable story.

"Are you _sleeping_?"

"I'm not," he says reflexively, the words coming out of his mouth before he realises that he doesn't know who's doing the asking. The accent sounds almost – Bavarian. And the Westfeldenstadion isn't in Bavaria.

"Why are you lying down, then?"

"I'm just getting up," Miro groans, planting his palms in the grass. The voice doesn't sound like anyone he knows; maybe it's the groundskeeper trying to get him off the pitch. He looks around him and blinks once, twice, four times.

It isn't Bavaria. It isn't even Dortmund. 

The stands around him are shallow and close, hugging the pitch so tightly he can see the faces of the spectators gathered watching them. Mostly boys, ragged-looking, grimy faces. There isn't any sort of a roof beyond the singular rectangular block to one side, which sits conspicuously out of place amongst the terraces, built to hold whatever people of importance couldn't get their heads wet. Men run around him in woollen jumpers and short shorts. Miro isn't a fashion expert by any means, but he's pretty sure that those went out of style decades ago.

Something feels oddly familiar about everything, almost as if he's been here before, even if he can't quite recognise any of it. The slope of the land, the way the sun is set in the sky. He's sure he _knows_ this place. Doesn't know _why_.

"You're slacking off," says the same voice, and Miro turns to find a young man on his haunches next to him, curly mop of hair and a nose too big for his face. He isn't wearing the jumper but he's decked out in a short-sleeved checked shirt. When he grins – and Miro isn't sure he's got any other expression – he bares a sharp set of teeth.

"I wasn't trying to," he assures the Bavarian, getting to his feet. It's only then that he realises he's wearing not his jersey from last night but the same woollen jumper as the rest of them. "But could you, ehm, tell me where I am exactly?"

"You're at training, Klose."

The Bavarian has his mouth slightly open, but he wasn't the one who spoke, and it isn't Miro that he's looking at. This voice is a voice that Miro knows. Just younger and firmer. With mounting apprehension he swivels on his heel and his stomach swoops low to the ground that's just fallen out from under him.

"So train," say Fritz Walter, smiling.

 

 

*

 

 

When it rained, as a child, the boys Miro played football with would shout _Fritz-Walter-Wetter_ and splash through the mud pretending they were gods. For all intents and purposes he was one, some kind of entity whose story everyone knew even if they hadn't lived through it themselves. Whatever he said you took to heart. There are people who become symbols, and the first time Miro had stepped out in the Fritz-Walter-Stadion he had kind of understood.

Still remembered all of it, too, how unreal it had felt, how strange. Some twenty-two year old Polish carpenter subbed on against Frankfurt in Germany's biggest league. The God watching him from the director's box in the home he had built. After the game someone had come up to him and said, Herr Walter would like to speak to you.

And he had. Kindly, fatherly, coming to sit with him in the corridor outside the dressing room. Hallo, Miro. How are you doing? I think you're going to be a very good player one day. Keep it up.

Every game he played. Hallo, Miro. How are you doing?

So he knew that voice. Knew it like the back of his hand. The God who became a friend, who he'd last seen four years ago before his first World Cup as an old man, telling him that he was going to be very good.

Miro got the call at midnight and said he'd dedicate his next goal to him. It hadn't rained in the semi-final, so Fritz wouldn't have liked it anyway.

 

 

*

 

 

This can't be real, he thinks. It's physically impossible. If the landscape didn't look so familiar he'd be discounting this already. 

"Is this some new way of getting out of training?" Fritz asks, tilting his head. "You look very pale. If you aren't feeling well, you should just say so."

"I'll bring him to the doctor, Herr Walter," says the Bavarian, giving Miro an outrageous wink that goes unnoticed by no one.

"If you'd like, Thomas." Fritz speaks with a kind of tone which signals to Miro that whatever this Thomas is up to is particular only to him.

"Yes, I'd like to."

Miro still hasn't said a word, but Thomas has already seized him by one hand and is dragging him towards the gate, mumbling assurances about how Doctor Müller was the most excellent doctor and would make him feel fine in less than an hour with his up-to-date techniques and equipment. He doesn't seem to have stopped talking since the moment Miro woke up.

Off the pitch and past a gate; some of the boys on the terraces follow them, waving sheets of paper. "Don't worry about them," Thomas says dismissively, harrying Miro onwards. "I keep telling them that I won't sign anything but they won't listen."

"Who are you, again?" Miro says faintly. Thomas flashes him an irreverent smile.

"Why, don't you remember me, Herr Klose? I'm the shoeshine boy who does everything around here. This club wouldn't be functioning without me, and you know that."

"So why would they – " Miro gets it only as he speaks and Thomas breaks into a cackle. 

"You're slow today. Are you really not feeling well?"

"I'm fine," Miro says, in a way that implied otherwise. "Are we really going to see a doctor?"

"The best doctor I know," Thomas says, and shepherds him down the Betzenberg.

 

 

*

 

 

The best doctor Thomas knows turns out to be the _Fantreff zum 12. Mann_ , where the fans used to gather and talk shit about the team. Miro had been in a couple of times. So it is definitely Kaiserslautern that they're in, albeit different from what he remembers. Even the bar; the columns are grey instead of brown, and the walls are flecked with scars.

Scars and greyness abound. The Hauptbahnhof that they walk past looks only just rebuilt and debris still clutters the edges of some streets.

Thomas slams a beer down in front of him and beams.

"Drink your medicine."

Miro takes a sip. It's crisp and hits his system almost immediately, going some ways to drag him out from the lucid dreamstate he's been floating in. He tilts his head at Thomas.

"This is Dr. Müller?"

"I am," Thomas puffs his chest out. "Dr. Thomas Müller. I heal all aches and ailments, and I never overcharge my customers."

Miro shakes his head. Thomas is something else. He doesn't even know quite what word to use.

"You're a shoeshine boy."

"Uh-huh. Best shoeshine boy in Germany. Herr Walter says I get to come for the World Cup because I'm that good."

The penny drops.

"What year are we in?"

Thomas frowns at him like he's just said something incredibly stupid. "What?"

"What year are we in?" Miro repeats, hardly daring to think. The flat stadium, the terraced stands, the debris on the road, the clothes, Fritz Walter – all of it clicks into place with a single punch that seizes his heart and stops it.

"1954," says Thomas.

 

 

*

 

 

Miro finishes half of his drink and lets Thomas have the rest, since he is paying anyway; he walks out in a daze, Thomas dragging him wherever else he wants. His mind's in another place, now. 1954. The Miracle of Bern, the spirit of Spiez, Zimmermann's voice. You took these kinds of stories with you, everywhere you went. Burnt it into your consciousness because memories could be forgotten but not this one. They were still singing about it in the streets fifty years later: _'54, '70, '90, '06_ –

They walk through Kaiserslautern, all cracked stone and scaffolding. These are the bones of the town he remembers. He watches the people go by in their old fashioned skirts and suits, glad, momentarily and frivolously, that no one was wearing lederhosen.

1954\. Soon they'd be going to the World Cup. "Tomorrow we're off," Thomas declares, tilting his head towards the Hauptbahnhof behind them. "Have you ever been to Switzerland?"

"Yeah," Miro says absently. "Do you always talk this much?"

"Unfortunately. Can I sit with you on the train?"

"God, no."

Thomas pulls a face. "You're no fun."

"That's a shame. I always wanted to be a comedian."

It gets a laugh from Thomas, and Miro starts to feel the knot in his chest loosen, as if he's starting to get used to things. Yes. He'll play everything off as normal, and then tomorrow when he wakes up he'll still be on the field in Dortmund.

The sun's reached its afternoon peak and Thomas drags him into a café along the street for lunch, rattling greetings to the owner and somehow wrangling a twenty percent discount with free drinks thrown in. Miro realises that he's stupidly hungry and inhales the food, savouring the warmth of the home cooking. He'd be killed for eating as much carbs as he is, but somehow the nineteen-fifties don't seem to be the highpoint of sports nutrition.

Thomas has stopped talking, which for all Miro has known him is surprising; he watches Miro eat with a strange expression on his face that Miro can't quite figure out. He's got an odd curl in his lip which somehow suits him.

"What?" Miro asks finally, because it's very hard to stuff yourself with potatoes if someone keeps staring at you like they know something you don’t.

"Nothing." Thomas beams. There are those sharp teeth again. "You. You're interesting."

"Why?"

Thomas is silent for a split second, then says, "you look like an owl," with all the matter-of-factness and finality of a conversation ending. 

Miro stares back at his plate. Thomas is very definitely something else.

 

 

*

 

 

After lunch they take a walk to a quiet residential street, which Miro realises with a start is where he stayed three years ago. Thomas jerks a thumb towards the door, grinning. "Dr. Müller recommends a long period of rest. Don't want you to be all weird tomorrow as well." 

"How do you know where I live?" Miro asks, fumbling in his pocket for keys, which he miraculously finds. He takes a step up to the door and slides the keys in; they unlock with a _click._

"It's my business to know everything."

"The shoeshine boy."

"We shoeshine boys take our jobs very seriously."

 Thomas lounges on the step below, one foot on the ledge, hands in his pockets, grinning up at Miro. His curly brown mop picks up the golden slivers of afternoon light. He can't be a day over twenty-one.

He's going to miss him, Miro thinks, in a strange kind of way. When you meet someone you don't know for a brief period of time and they sink into your memory regardless.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow," Thomas says, giving him a wink. "Don't be late."

"I won't," Miro says. Closes the door behind him.

It's a little flat up the stairs, cosy mainly out of necessity. The wallpaper looks too new for such an old-fashioned design, and Miro momentarily forgets when he is. The curtains are drawn. Miro walks over and looks down; Thomas is disappearing down the end of the street, a spring to his step.

He lies back on the skinny metal bed and looks up at the ceiling. The paint there is peeling off in patches. It must only be around four in the afternoon, but for some reason he feels exceedingly tired, as if he hadn't slept all of last night.

Of course he hadn't. Last night they'd been kicked out of the World Cup. Last night he hadn't scored.

The paint flakes away above him.

 

 

*

 

 

In his dreams he's back in the briefing room which is quiet as all hell, everyone sitting staring at their thumbs or into the middle distance. No one saying a word. Even England won it on home soil, someone breaks the silence, which gets a half-hearted laugh. Bierhoff comes in: titles are the rewards you display but it is the people and moments that you remember more. Heart, passion, head. That's what they'd kept telling them. Like an apology, like comfort. They wouldn't be saying this if they'd won. Heart, passion, head. People and moments. Third place isn't so bad.

 

 

*

 

 

He opens his eyes.

He's in a bed. There's bad fifties wallpaper all around him.

So it isn't a dream. Some kind of alternate universe, reality, timeline, but one that he's living in and will be for the foreseeable future. Miro climbs out of bed slowly, rocking on his palms before pushing himself up. There's a cupboard across the room. He pulls it open. Someone – whoever this Miro Klose was, he presumes – has already packed a bag for him.

The shower drips until it decides to stop dripping, which is just as well, because the water is ice-cold. Miro rubs down whatever water got into his hair and changes into one of the threadbare suits hanging off the rack. It's made of some kind of coarse tweed which prickles his skin as he drags the bag down the rickety stairs. 

Thomas is waiting outside for him, just as he'd promised. He's got a suit on as well; it hangs off his skinny limbs like it's two sizes too big, and so somehow fits him perfectly. "Bright and early," he grins, grabbing Miro's bag and slinging it over his shoulder despite Miro's protests. "How are we feeling today?"

"Better," Miro says, which is kind of the truth. Resigned to this strange occurrence would probably have been more accurate.

"Excellent. You'll need to keep your spirits up for our nice long train ride together."

"I'm going to sleep on the train."

"What? You just woke up."

Kaiserslautern is a small town, and they get to the train station in no time. Fritz and four others Miro had seen yesterday on the training pitch are already there. Eckel, Kohlmeyer, Liebrich, and the Walters. They still worshipped them on the Red Devils' terraces, the middling table positions the team occupied at present doing nothing to dispel the past.

They've played for the same team. Technically they're ex-teammates. Miro smiles to himself; not that it makes much difference, but thinking of everything purely on football terms somehow makes things easier to wrap his head around.

"On to Switzerland by way of Munich," cries Thomas, brandishing Miro's bag as if it were some sort of sword.

They do all end up in the same cabin and Thomas – quite brilliantly, Miro has to admit – manages to keep the conversation going without much input from the other parties. Even on the rare occasions he lapses into silence it feels like he's only taking a break.

What Miro finds interesting is that it isn't _annoying_ , for all that it's a lot to take in. Thomas has a way about him where everything that he says is sharp and funny and engaging, and he talks like he's examining your reaction at the same time. Somehow Miro gets the feeling that Thomas already knows more about him than the other way around.

"Why exactly are you here?" he asks once when there's a gap, determined to even up the score.

"I got on a train this morning," Thomas shoots back, quick as anything. "You should know. Weren't you there?"

"I mean," Miro persists, not to be deterred. "Your accent. The way you behave. It just feels – "

"Different?" Thomas grins. "You could say that. I take pride in not being one of your stuffy old types. No offence."

"I'm not stuffy." Miro pauses. "Or old."

"Anyone who's older than me is old," Thomas waves a dismissive hand. "Anyway, it brings some life to the team, doesn't it? Poor old Fritz would be far moodier and more boring if it weren't for me."

"Excuse me," Fritz says, frowning.

Miro's question still isn't answered, but he can see now he's not going to find out anything about Thomas that Thomas doesn't want to tell him. Shaking his head, Miro settles back in his seat and looks out of the window, feeling Thomas's gaze on him.  

Europe by train is the only way to look at it. Mountains and small towns form most of the landscape, but the tracks themselves make up the marvel, junctions so wide they might as well be highways. There are bits and pieces of reality, like some signs in French that haven't been taken down, or repair works that lead to diversions. But the whole feeling of it – leaning out of the carriage window, the fresh air, the grass – is timeless in a way only trains can be. For once Miro doesn't have to worry about the decade, or the World Cup, or how he's going to get home. Everything just _is_.

They slink into Bavaria, Thomas visibly brightening. Miro's slightly afraid he might break out into lederhosen and start knocking back beers the closer they get to Munich. The American presence is more noticeable here, green-clad soldiers patrolling the station when they get off. Other than that Munich looks remarkably similar to what Miro remembers, save for a few of the more modern constructions which are still being built.

"Pretty, no?" Thomas says happily, sticking his head out of the bus like a dog lapping up the wind. "They tried to restore all of the buildings, especially the town centre. If we had more time I'd bring you to all of the beer halls."

"I don't think the coach would be very happy with that," Fritz points out mildly.

The coach. Miro hadn't even thought of him yet.

Instead of going north towards the Allianz the bus turns south instead, down the Isar and past the forests. Miro isn't stupid enough to ask where exactly they're going, so he keeps quiet while the rest (Thomas) talk. It's only when they make a turn in the road that he sees a concrete stand rising beyond the copse of trees cluttered in front.

"Grünwalder Stadion." Thomas's voice sounds subdued for the first time since Miro's met him. He's still leaning out of the window but his shoulders are slouched and the expression on his face is quiet, almost fierce.

They get off the bus to good-natured whistles and applause. "All right, Klose," a few people shout at him, which Miro isn't quite expecting; he mumbles something in return and hurriedly follows the rest to the changing rooms. They're bare, drab affairs, benches against the wall and a bunch of cloth tracksuits. Miro tugs one on that seems to fit him. At least the crest is something familiar.

Thomas doesn't follow them in. He's still on the pitch when Miro comes out, scuffing at the grass with his shoes. Tilts his head back and looks up at the empty stands, the buildings beyond. Miro follows his gaze and sees a bunch of people clustered on the roof of one of the houses.

"Used to climb that," Thomas says, noticing Miro coming up behind him. "To watch the games. Always saving money, you know."

Miro looks at the grey scoreboard raised above one of the stands, which has the card _TSV 1860_ in place on the left, the home side, and _DARMSTADT_ on the right in the away.

"1860?" he asks, and Thomas's laugh is at once both indignant and disbelieving.

"Are you kidding?"

"It says 1860 on the scoreboard."

There's that odd look again. "We share the stadium," Thomas says, tilting his head. Miro winces. He should have known that. "It's the wrong sign, though."

Miro opens his mouth, but Fritz is calling him back to the group on the other side of the stadium. Thomas gives him a wave and lopes towards the stands.

Training is – well. Sepp Herberger's there, gravel voice and high forehead, and too many names and faces that he recognises from anniversaries and old photos. They all seem to know him, which places him at a distinct disadvantage. He presses his lips together and says as little as possible – that's never been a problem for him – thinking that it's much more difficult to catch out someone when they aren't saying anything wrong.

The ball's a lot heavier is the first thing he notices. Others too – the grass is harder to play on, the tackles more lumbering, the cleats harder. He's far fitter than the rest of them, but the game's different. Okay, he thinks, he's going to have to adjust if he wants to stay here.

And he wants to stay here. That much he knows, as he plays.

The ball isn't heavier, it's just round. The game still lasts ninety minutes. Everything is self-evident as if you put a child in front of a goalpost and asked them to score.

 

 

*

 

 

"Can I buy you a drink?" Thomas asks after training, paying complete disregard to Miro's privacy or personal space as he sticks his head round the baths. "Or what I really mean is can you buy me a drink and can I pay you back sometime?"

Miro gapes at him. "I'm bathing."

"Sure," Thomas waves a hand in the air like it's normal and as such inconsequential to hold conversations in the baths. "Hence, afterwards. Unless you want to go out naked. I don't think anyone would mind."

" _I'd_ mind."

"I wouldn't," Thomas says cheerfully. "See you outside."

And just as quickly as he'd come in, he's disappeared. Rahn looks up from his corner and says, drily, "looks like someone's taken a liking to you."

It's disconcerting. Both sitting in the baths with Helmut Rahn as well as the idea that Thomas has taken a liking to him. Miro smiles weakly and pulls at a towel, trying his best not to think about what any of it means.

Thomas has his hands in his pockets outside and drags him straight to the bus stop down the street, telling him all about this excellent dinner that they're going to have, and he'll be damned if Herr Herberger won't let Miro eat some Käsespätzle just because of his new fitness regimen thing – people could eat anything they wanted as long as they worked out, didn't they – the beer was going to be better than anything he'd ever had, welcome to Bavaria, and if he had time after training tomorrow they'd go sightseeing. 

Miro has barely any brain space left to notice it, but just before they step out of the Grünwalder entirely he glances inadvertently at the pitch. The grey scoreboard winks back at him. _DARMSTADT_ , it says on the right in stark white letters, and _BAYERN_ on the left.

 

 

*

 

 

Two weeks.

There's good football and there's good food but he's starting to feel restless, without real matches to be played. Without goals to be scored. It feels like summer break, except he's worked himself up so much about this thing that every day crawls by agonisingly slowly. Even Thomas isn't enough a distraction, fond as Miro's becoming of him.

Thomas is someone very easy to get very fond of very quickly, he's found, with his sharp grin and mismatched eyes and penchant of saying the most unexpected things. He's got a way about him that puts Miro at ease without knowing why; probably because it's comforting not to have to think of anything to say. But Miro suspects he didn't wake up here just to listen to someone talk a lot.

When Liebrich stops in to tell him that they're leaving for Zürich he almost heaves a sigh of relief. They pile onto the train in their grey suits and red ties, Thomas having mysteriously acquired one as well; "I'm Captain Walter's personal attendant," he tells anyone who smiles faintly at him while failing to remember which club he plays for.

More of Germany passes outside. Ditches in the fields piles of rubble no one could be bothered to touch, children playing football in the ruins. "Hey," Rahn shouts from the window, waving at them, and they scream and wave back in excitement.

No one else seems particularly bothered. There's none of that pulsing feeling in the air or the waving of flags or replica shirts that he's familiar with. No carloads of fans speed down the newly-restored motorways in the same direction they're headed; the train carriages are filled with elderly travellers and men in business suits who look polite but otherwise clueless.

Thomas nudges him in the side. "They'll get better as we get better," he says, as ever fully cognisant to Miro's unuttered thoughts.

Off at Zürich, which hasn't changed. Miro doubts it will have changed very much in the last few hundred years. They get on a rickety-looking bus that surely can't take twenty-five people, and yet everyone seems to cram on all right. Someone even digs up an accordion and launches into a bunch of old folk songs. "And you thought I was taking things too seriously," Miro mutters sideways to Thomas, who snorts and gets an odd look from Ottmar.

It feels nice, after all that; it feels like how it's supposed to, the boisterous singing, the jokes in between, the slightly drunken yelling at cows in the countryside. _Werner Liebrich, Werner Liebrich. Schlafst du noch? Schlafst du noch?_ Laughter, Liebrich says something in indignation, more laughter. Miro looks out at the grey-tarred road and street signs that pass by every so often. In his head he hears Xavier Naidoo song that they'd kept playing on the bus. How did that go again? _Dieser Weg wird kein leichter sein, dieser Weg wird steinig und schwer_ –

 

 

*

 

 

Spiez is. Well. He's definitely in Switzerland, if nothing else. Green grass and brown-roofed farmers' houses. The lake is so clear and blue it looks like crystal. The breeze ruffles Miro's hair as he makes towards the bags, only to be halted by porters in uniforms and hats. "Porters!" Thomas exclaims, ambling down the steps. "You're living in some luxury, Klose!"

"Says the shoeshine boy about to stay in the same hotel," Miro retorts. He has no doubt that Thomas has already wrangled a room somehow or the other. It has to be some kind of blackmail; he can't figure it out otherwise.

The rooms are grand the way they wouldn't be anymore. Floral wallpaper, plush velvet bedspreads, beds so soft you sank into them. Horst takes the one on the left, away from the window. "The breeze will wreck my nose," he tells Miro in all seriousness.

Miro takes his time unpacking his clothes and putting them into the wardrobe. Shirt, trousers, jacket. One, two, three. He counts off in his head like a training drill. Tomorrow they're playing Turkey. He already knows what's going to happen. Surely. Goal, goal, goal. One, two, three.

 

 

*

 

 

Thomas tells him later: but it's football, Miro. So what if you know how the game goes? So what if you've watched the replay, read it in the newspaper? It's football. Every time you watch a game it feels like the first time. You don't know what's going to happen. Why should this be any different?

 

 

*

 

 

They walk out in Bern to twenty-eight thousand, people leaning against the wooden fences that separate pitch from stand. Miro sees the Longines tower in the corner of the ground with its hands reset to the top. He isn't in the team today so he takes his seat, pulling at the heavy tracksuit collar around his throat. No substitutions yet. Two years from now Bert Trautmann will break his neck and play on.

Blow the whistle, ref. Two minutes – Suat scores. Then Morlock into Schafer, blazing down in through the middle of Turkey's defence to equalise. Football the way it's no longer played; tackles that clatter, the unevenness of the field. The lack of advertising or a booming announcer. Mostly the crowd, shouts from everywhere frenetic and off-beat, like it's a 3.liga game.

Then Turkey scores again.

Miro jolts up, scarce believing it. No, this. Turek stretched on the ground, Lefter wheeling away. This isn't in the script. And hadn't the script already been written. Klodt goes close, but the Turkish defenders close him down before he goes anywhere. Another shot that's just clawed away. They go into the break one-down and Fritz has his head down, won't look at anyone.

"You're going to win," Miro says. "You will win. You will."

"Your conviction is encouraging," Fritz murmurs, trying for a grin.

"I'm serious."

"He's right," Thomas says from the back of the room.

Twenty pairs of eyes turn towards him. Thomas is sitting in the corner on a bench at the far end, leaning forward, fingers entwined. "There's space behind Basri and Ridvan."

Herberger comes in, grim-faced with his hands rammed into the pockets of his coat. "Men," he says, and that's all. The message is clear. Don't disappoint me, don't disappoint yourselves.

They walk out again. The stadium seems quieter now, looming dark over the pitch. A sense of expectancy. The whistle. Miro watches the game like he's watched hundreds of others, toes curled in his shoes.

Down the length of the pitch. Pressing, pressing. Klodt misses another one, one that Miro thinks he should have scored. _If I were there_ – but his eyes are drawn elsewhere, away from Kohlmeyer on the left with the ball and towards Ottmar's run. Into the box. Behind Basri and Ridvan, where suddenly there's space. _Raum._ Magic.

Kohlmeyer whips the ball in and Ottmar downs it straight into the goal, no one to stop him.

"Perfect," says Herberger. The stands are loud again. Miro looks around to find Thomas some ways behind him, pumping his fist in the air. Catches his eye. Thomas winks, his mismatched eyes clear for a moment under the sun.

 

 

*

 

 

"That's why they tolerate you."

"Harsh," Thomas says. "I hope it's a little more than tolerance."

He lounges back in his chair and sips at his water. Eckel has run off to have a drink with some of the others, so Miro's room is otherwise free and Thomas has, quite naturally, nominated himself to fill the space.

"Okay. That's why they like you."

They'd won three-two in the end, Klodt knocking in another one just before the final whistle. Still on the train even if it wasn't quite the same track. Miro folds his arms and looks at Thomas, twenty one years old, nonchalant as anything.

"Yes," he says, holding Miro's gaze and grinning. "That's why they like me."

It isn't a real answer, still, but it's closer than anything Miro's gotten out of Thomas in three weeks. So far beyond knowing that Thomas is from Bavaria and supports Bayern he doesn't know anything else about him. Beyond knowing that Thomas is unlike anything else he's seen, strange and brilliant and silly and nothing like he pretends to be.

"How come you don't play?"

"We have a very good team already."

"You'd be an excellent player," Miro presses. "And you're still young. It isn't too late."

Something crosses Thomas's face, like a shadow. "I can't run very well."

"What?"

"I can't run," Thomas drags the words out, "very well. Our house, near the end. I woke up in hospital."

He shakes his head and the moment's gone, his smile returned, and it feels like a baton has been passed. "But what are we going to do about you, opa? You're an excellent player yet you aren't playing."

Miro shifts in his seat and transfers his gaze to the window. "You don't know that."

"Anyone can tell just watching you in training." Thomas nods as if he's letting Miro in on some kind of secret. "Coach can't go for long without picking you. Even if you're all slow and terrible and look like an – "

"Owl?" Miro finishes dryly, and Thomas cackles.

"A very frightened owl who doesn’t know what it's doing on the football pitch."

I do know what I'm doing, Miro wants to say. I just don't know what I'm doing here.

There's an ache in his bones, the one he gets when he hasn't scored in a while. It started since Italy and even though he hasn't thought as much about it in the last few weeks, it's still there under the clear surface of the water. I don't know what I'm doing here. What if he plays, and they lose – obviously the script isn't written in stone, anything can happen, the game lasts ninety minutes. I don't know what I'm doing.

"Hey, opa." Thomas drags his chair closer to Miro and gives him a nudge with his knee. "Stop looking so serious, will you? It's bumming me out."

"Sorry." Miro shifts his shoulders and tries not to think about how Thomas hasn't moved away. "It's the only face I have."

A beat. Thomas keeps his gaze trained on Miro, hard and intent. His mouth looks like he's on the verge of smiling.

He doesn't, in the end. Stands up and puts a hand around Miro's neck. Draws back and gently buffs his cheek. Miro feels his fingers on his face long after Horst comes back completely drunk, shouting _Schweinehund_ at everything he sees.

 

*

 

The champions next. Basel is a longer bus ride away, and all through the journey no one sings. Hungary hasn't been beaten in four and a half years. Even if the other names are less familiar to Miro he knows Ferenc Puskás well enough.

Four and a half years, so of course Herberger puts out a second string team to beat it. The mood in the stadium almost ebullient. The sun burns hot into his cheeks. Twice as many people as the Turkey game packed into the stadium, even more milling about outside. Trains that go so close you can see them crossing the top of the stands. Figures hang out of the windows craning their necks for a glimpse of the pitch as they go by. There's a Longines clock here too, flat and looking like it was almost made of cardboard.

When the teams walk out they're swarmed by men in white shirts with cumbersome cameras. That'd be some sort of pitch violation now. Puskás and Fritz exchange pennants. Miro wonders briefly where all these have gone.

From the first surge towards the goal it's obvious that the Hungarians are almost impossible to beat. They play like the ball's glued to their feet, Czibor nicking it off Liebrich by ways of an excellent turn and running his way through about five Germans before winning a corner. An easy goal in the third minute by Kocsis from that. They don't have positions, either; it's almost Total Football, swapping in and out, running the Germans ragged the way they expand and compress the pitch at will.

It's a training session. Comes to a point where they're almost running in slow motion and still the Germans have no way to catch them.

At half time there's a mumble of discontent, but what can you say, really, if there's anything to be said. Fritz laces his fingers together and rests his elbows on his knees, looking down at the ground between his boots.

 

 

*

 

 

They're still – they're still going to get there. Miro knows this. The script. The story. All written out, all told, except he's here. Like his presence has caused a ripple in the water, a Midas where everything he touches falls apart instead. Things happening that aren't supposed to happen, and all of it builds up, he knows, in the minds of athletes to whom taking things too seriously comes naturally anyway.

Nine-one. Not eight-three. _Nine-one._

The bus back to Spiez is pin-drop silent but for the rattle and hum of the engine. Miro stares out of the window at the road, which is devoid of people. Blue sky and puffy white clouds hang above.

He's not angry, he doesn't think. Or sad. Or anything. And that's the problem; I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what I'm doing. It irks him for being out of reach, elusive, always a step ahead, like space only Thomas can see.

 

 

*

 

 

"Klose."

Herberger's voice jolts him out from where he's been hitting balls into the net, experimenting with the way the wooden posts bend the ball differently. Miro steadies the ball at his feet and looks up blinking.  

"Yes, coach."

"Do you think we stand a chance?"

It's an odd question. "Of course," Miro says. Not just because somewhere in the universe there's a timeline where they did win, but because there's always a chance, isn't there. Before Italy he'd have said the same thing.

Herberger nods. Puts his hand heavy on Miro's shoulder and says, "You're playing on Wednesday."  

 

*

 

Okay.

In Zürich Herberger reads them newspaper headlines and hate mail from a folder labelled _CO-WORKERS_. Disgrace. Resign. Get out. Buy a rope and find a tree. It's hammering on the head, but it works. The team is the team is the team. You're not playing for yourself, you're playing for everybody else. This is all that football is, maxims and sayings and myths.

He pulls on the away kit today, green base and white collar, eagle in a circle as the crest. There aren't any player names but there is the number eleven emblazoned in bold on the back. At least some things don't change, he thinks, smiling a little.

He puts on his socks. Right, left. Puts on his shoes. Right, left. 

They walk out. Right, left. Far less people in the stands, which in and of themselves are flatter and more squat. It looks almost like they're back in Kaiserslautern. Long, empty benches make up most of the south end. The play-off is a novelty in the age before goal difference, an unnecessary fixture in a calendar already looking towards the quarter finals.  

Miro runs and it's – it feels like he can breathe again, like when you wake up and the ache in your legs has finally disappeared. The original Adidas boots with their screw-studs dig clumsily into the ground and the kit is prickly and sits uncomfortable around his neck, but he's here. The goal in front of him, the goal behind. White lines traced on the ground.

It isn't a breakthrough. It isn't some kind of eye-opening enlightenment. It's just a game.

The referee tosses a coin and it lands comically on the ground, three men bending down to look in the grass. "Maybe you should try catching it next time," Miro mutters to no one in particular.

Five minutes – someone nicks the ball off him in the box and spins it into a counter, blazing down the other end and into the net. Twelve – Schafer again arriving to pull one back. Twenty, twenty five – no Longines here and no way to know how much has gone, only that Turkey's gone up again over there. It's frenetic and fast, like the pitch has shrunk in size since he'd last played a game. He remembers Italy unbidden. Forces his mind back to the present – the past – whatever it is.

There.

Horst bursting in and having a go that the right-back hustles out, but Thomas isn't the only one with a knack for knowing where to be. It just so happens that his works best in the six yard box.

He slides forward. Cuts out the scramble with a touch of his boot, swaps it to his other foot and lashes it towards goal. It's Costa Rica, it's Ecuador. It's his eleventh goal at the World Cup. No one's counting, but he'll take it on his fingers anyway. He bends his knees and launches into a loop, Rahn's delighted laughter echoing in his ear, _what the fuck are you doing, Klose –_  

Five more to immortality.

 

 

*

 

 

"I told you," Thomas crows, kicking him in the shin not-inadvertently. "You're brilliant. You just needed a game. I told you."

"If this is praise it's starting to sound very self-congratulatory."

"That's because I'm brilliant too."

"Oh, shut him up, Miro," goes a chorus around the bus. Miro shakes his head and cuffs Thomas around the ear which does absolutely nothing.

Three-two isn't quite a decimation, but it's gotten them to where they should be. Quarter finals. Horst magically procures beer in the room that night and a few others pile in for a quiet drink. The elephant in the room – Sunday – is studiously avoided, conversation instead ranging from next year's Oberliga to how exactly the best sauerkraut is prepared. Thomas, of course, has opinions on everything, while Miro is content to sit on the edge and watch them, every so often pretending to engage a potted plant in polite chit-chat.

It's nice and quiet and away from everything, eleven goals, the year, the other elephant in the room. Thomas catches his eye once and gives him a terribly obnoxious wink he doesn't know what to do with.

Quarter finals. "Hey, opa," Thomas says, finally coming over to Miro's corner and plopping down to hide his plant friend from view. "You're talkative tonight."

"Someone had to be."

Thomas scoffs. "Surely I've taught you better than for you to sit in a corner all night like an old man."

"I am an old man, didn't you say?" 

The party's shifting slowly down the corridor, and Miro can hear the sounds fading behind him even without looking around. He keeps his gaze on Thomas, lip quirked in a smile. Quarter finals. Thomas meets his eyes and grin like a challenge, like he meets everything else, self-assured and trembling and boundless. Like he meets Miro's kiss. Breathes and says nothing. Presses his cheek into Miro's palm, digs his fingers into Miro's thigh.

 

 

*

 

 

They take Yugoslavia in what might be the smallest quarter final Miro's ever seen; nothing more than twenty thousand, squeezed into a flat training ground-esque stadium of a Geneva club. The clock here reads ZENITH and the team names are stacked up in uneven, child-like cards below:

_YOUGOSLAVIE  
W. ALLEMAGNE _

Countries that no longer exist in a world that no longer exists. Miro takes a second too long with the ball, staring at the crest on one of the players' shirts. Thinks of his childhood; thinks of his battered leather suitcase, Blaubach, hammering nails into wood and bending low over housing blueprints. His father. _Ja_ and _danke_. The past rushes into him like a door, catches him in the chin and spins him around, the player takes the ball off him and Yugoslavia go a goal up.

"You could score right behind Stankovic," Thomas says at half time, quietly. "He keeps leaving his post."

And they can, and they do. Liebrich punts a ball to Rahn who slots it low past the keeper. Twenty minutes from time Miro sees his shot rebound off the post only for Ottmar to take the rebound, all quite against the run of play. The twenty thousand sing: come on, Germany.

Two to one is still a win, Miro trudging off the pitch with a rotten feeling settled at the bottom of his stomach. On the way back Thomas makes a joke about it and Miro forces a laugh with everyone else, but he's only laughing because they didn't lose. All of them are only laughing because they didn't lose.

 

 

*

 

 

Doesn't matter. The ball is round, so on and so forth. Semi-finals. _2002, 2006_ –

 

 

*

 

 

In Basel fifty thousand greet them as the rain begins to trickle down their backs. Fritz grins at Miro. "Nice weather," he says.

Miro's seen Fritz Walter play. Every child has seen films and documentaries and heard people talk about the games they've seen. Every time it rains in Kaiserslautern someone will mention the man the stadium is named after. But here, in Basel, on the slick grass, Miro sees Fritz Walter _play_. And it isn't anything fantastic. It isn't Zidane's artistry, it isn't Pirlo's architecture. Just a man with his heavy socks falling down around his knees, sliding through mud, enjoying himself.

One, two, three climbs the score. Even Miro pulls one in – twelve for the record books – a tap-in off a beautiful Fritz cross. But for most of the match it's got nothing to do with him. No space for his own story, Italy all, excising the ghost or whatever else Miro might have thought this would become. The graceful, fancied Austrians dance their way into something of a comeback, but Fritz strings together five and six all on his own.

It's – it's. It doesn't make any sense. Morlock to Walter to Schäfer and he _knows_ these names. Doesn't come next to these names.

They walk off the field and they're in the final and everyone's yelling, the team is the team is the team, and Miro's being here still throws everything onto a cliff edge. I don't know, I don't know. Somewhere in the timeline they're playing for third place, and that's where he's supposed to be. Not claiming this.

"What do you think of that, Miro?" Fritz says, cheerful for once, patting the seat next to him on the bus. Miro mumbles a noncommittal _ehm_ as he takes the offered spot, folding his hands into his lap. "The final! Only Hungary now."

"The Hungary that beat us nine what, again?" Liebrich reminds them, making a face.

"Hungary who?" Rahn whoops, shaking the head of the seat behind Miro. "We're in the fucking final, what does anything else matter?"

It's the first time Miro's heard anyone swear in front of captain push-in-your-seat-after-dinner Walter, but all Fritz does is smile back.

"Yes. A game we've still got to play."

"A game we're going to win," Herberger says from the front, and the whole bus ride goes on like this. Only Thomas is conspicuously silent, his constant sharp gaze making the tip of Miro's ears burn.

 

 

*

 

 

"Knock, knock."

"You know, in some countries it's polite to actually knock," Horst points out. "Instead of just saying _knock, knock_ while simultaneously coming in."

"Your mouth is too big, Eckel," Thomas informs him. "Turek's having a party, it'll be of better use there."

Horst gives Miro a meaningful look before sliding out the door. Thomas flops onto Horst's recently evicted bed, pulls a leg over his knee, and stares keenly at Miro. Everyone seems very interested in giving him meaningful looks today.

"What?"

"Nothing." Thomas beams. "You."

"I look like an owl."

"Not that." Thomas leans over and prods Miro in the chest. "You scored a beautiful goal today."

"All my goals look the same," Miro says dryly.

"In the semi-finals of the World Cup." Thomas ignores him only to prod harder. "You're going to play in the final, and you're moping around like some sick dog."

"Woof."

"Miro."

Miro exhales, slowly, raises his hand to curl around Thomas's finger and bring it down, doesn't let go.

"I'm not from here."

"None of us are from here. Well, maybe Kohlmeyer is secretly Swiss – you can't ever really tell with him – "

"I'm from the future."

Thomas blinks, then barks a loud laugh. Which wasn't quite the reaction Miro was expecting.

"I thought so."

"You thought I was from the future?"

"No, but I thought there was something odd about you, ever since you couldn't remember who I was." Thomas shoots him a grin. "I'm very memorable."

"That you are," Miro admits. If there's one thing that fits amongst this mess of a jigsaw puzzle, it's Thomas; no surprise, really, given his peculiar ability to squeeze into spaces not meant for anyone else. Miro isn't even surprised that Thomas isn't surprised at his news.

"When are you from?"

"2006." Miro smiles a little bit. "World Cup year. Same as this."

"Yeah?" Thomas shifts over so that he's sitting on Miro's bed beside him, knocks his knees into Miro's entirely on purpose. "And you played for that team instead. Do we win?"

"No. We lose to Italy in the semi-final."

The look that Thomas gives him – another one to add to his long list today – is knowing and incredulous all at once. "Is _that_ what you're all worked up about? That you lost then and don't deserve another shot now? Come on, old man. I know you and the captain are freakishly sticky about fairness and all that, but this is different."

"It isn't only that," Miro protests. "It's – I know what happens."

"Oh." Thomas arches an eyebrow. "Do I sense trepidation beneath that delicate exterior?"

"I'm being serious, Thomas. Me being here has changed every single result so far. The final – "

But he doesn't get to finish his sentence, because Thomas has turned his face towards him and presses a long, slow kiss to his mouth. Miro breathes in. His lips give way under Thomas's tongue, and Thomas presses him into the bed, one hand by his ear, the other running under his shirt onto bare skin.

"I always thought it'd be you kissing me to shut me up," Thomas murmurs. "You talk too much nowadays, old man. Whoever did you pick up that bad habit from?"

"Thomas," Miro gasps, arching his back as Thomas drops his hand below the waistline of Miro's trousers. "This isn't helping."

"Of course it is." Thomas pauses between kisses to bump his forehead. "You're taking everything too seriously, opa. The trick is not to. The game lasts ninety minutes and all that. Of course it doesn't really, with the half-time break and stoppage, but you know what he means – "

Yes. Yes, of course. Everything is simple, everything is only football. Thomas's voice gets more ragged as he breathes. So what if you know how the game goes? So what if you've watched the replay, read it in the newspaper? It's football.

Miro digs his fingers into Thomas's skin, the ceiling hazy and heady, the small room. Every time you watch a game it feels like the first time. You don't know what's going to happen.

He doesn't know if Thomas is still speaking or if he's just hearing this in his mind. Gasping, stuttering, he comes with a jolt. You don't have to think about it. You've played all sorts of games all your life. And you always play them thinking you're going to win. Thomas draped warm all over him, so still and quiet for once that Miro can feel the rise and fall of his chest.

Why should this be any different?

Why should this be any different.

 

 

*

 

 

He dreams of the sky, endless and blue above him, a valley beyond. Houses along the river wooden and neat. He's standing on a hill looking down; it could be anywhere, really, Switzerland or otherwise. A figure steps out of one of the houses and peers up at him, hands on its hips. It's too far away to make out the face. He starts to walk down, but the further he goes the further the figure seems to get.

The breeze picks up around his ankles. Grass bleeds into the air, rippled by the gale that suddenly builds behind him; he calls out but can't hear himself over the howl of the wind. He calls out again, noiselessly. The figure seems to hear him. It waves once, then the wind picks him up off his feet and when he opens his eyes the clock tells him it's the fourth of July, 1954.

 

 

*

 

 

A ripple through the bus on the way – Puskás has recovered and will be playing. The sky gets progressively darker, though none of them dare say a word. It's a long drive to Bern. Outside cars honk at them, and boys run a length alongside before falling away.

In their grey suits and red ties they sit around the table of a dimly lit room, Herberger with a chalk board in front circling names and drawing links. "We are strong enough to beat them," he says, "gentlemen. We are strong enough."

White shirt. Black collar. Eagle with a circle inside. There is no difference, to this or any other game he's ever played.

Thomas bursts in shaking a box of Adi Dassler's interchangeable studs. "Delivery from the shoeshine boy," he grins, ear to ear, his hair and shirt soaked right through. Rumbling in the distance beyond the walls. Still no one dares say a word, but even Fritz is smiling as he laces his boots on.

 

 

*

 

 

Here's how it goes.

The ball is round. The game lasts ninety minutes. He knows all of this. Knew it the first time he walked on against Albania, twenty three years old and unknown. Knew it as a child, knew it as a carpenter's apprentice dreaming of stepping onto the pitch. It's laid into the ground of German football, because what is football anyway but maxims, sayings, myths.

The tunnel is small and claustrophobic and makes the roar of the crowd that greets them a hundred times louder. Ten thousand more than the game in Basel squeezed into the stands and people can barely move for it. There is the Longines clock in the corner, ready to begin counting down. During the national anthem he looks up at the crowd, forty thousand of them who'd come here from Germany in their trains and buses and clunky little cars, dressed in suits and hats and dresses, bankers and miners, office workers and grotty little shoeshine boys.

He stands quite still. Lets the rain trickle down his back and soak into his skin. _Fritz-Walter-Wetter._ Splashing through the mud pretending they were gods. He has played this game before and he will play it again, one day. Someday. A different team and a different trophy, but the story will be the same. _Ja. Danke. Alles, alles geht vorbei, doch wir sind uns treu_ _._

 

 

The whistle, the game, the ball, he knows this, he knows –

 

 

*

 

 

Across countries telegraph wires crank slowly to life, running articles tapped out in bursts. Reporters in the press box with gloved fingers digging into notebooks. Commentators sitting in a row ahead, one per language, boxed off with little glass panes to the side but otherwise open to the elements. Those tinny voices carry to houses, pubs, radios in train stations. Some things change over the years. Life stays the same.

_Today it is not a B-team. Today Germany's strongest squad is playing. This is a great day, this is a proud day, though let's not be so presumptuous to think it would have to end successfully._

At the edge of the field, Kocsis twists past Kohlmeyer and lofts the ball into the centre, where Puskás is waiting for it. The ball falls onto his foot as if tied by string; it rattles the bar as it goes in past a diving, beaten Turek.

_HUNGARY 1 – 0 WEST GERMANY_

Eckel loses the ball in the middle of the park. Down rush the red shirts. They sweep through the penalty area; Czibor steals away from Liebrich, finds himself in sight of the goal, does what anyone would do.

_HUNGARY 2 – 0 WEST GERMANY_

A foregone conclusion, the previous game at the back of everyone's minds. Hungary's commentator drums his fingers into the table rapt with expectation. _GOAL... A WONDERFUL GOAL! ... There is the lead. And now: calmly, boys, just as we played at the 9-1._

More, more, chants the crowd, so the Germans oblige. A missed clearance from a corner and Morlock seizes gleefully upon it, rushing the ball into the net like a bull.

_HUNGARY 2 – 1 WEST GERMANY_

The beginning of the second-half sees a furious peppering of the German goal, but Turek stands firm, and Liebrich delivers a wonderful goal-line clearance. People huddle closer to the radios. Something is shifting in the air, and they can feel it. Something has got to give.

Twenty minutes from time, it gives. Walter finds space for Rahn to take it up the left wing. Zakariás deflects and it arrives directly in the path of Klose, always at the right place at the right time. He bounces it off the inside of his right foot. _This is more than what we dared to hope in our wildest dreams._ This is as easy as breathing.

_HUNGARY 2 – 2 WEST GERMANY_

Six minutes to play, everyone tuckered from the rain that bashes their heads, the water that loosens their grip on the grass. All to play for. Listen, listen. Stand shoulder to shoulder and listen. Schäfer slides in on Bozsik and takes the ball, bursting down the right. The cross is high and loops over the heads of everyone but Lantos, who knocks it away. But no – Rahn has it, it's fallen to him – he feints a pass to Walter, tosses it back to his left, turns the whole of his body towards this one, insignificant, round ball –

_Tor! Tor! Tor! Tor! Halten Sie mich für verrückt! Halten Sie mich für übergeschnappt!_

Call me crazy. Call me mad. There are impossible dreams, there is pain and there is transcendental joy. There is the colour of the sky that you will always remember, where you are, whenever you are. All to play for, and all was played for. Listen, look. We are all, we all are.

 

 

*

 

 

And here, on the brink:

"Just blow the whistle, ref," Rahn screaming, the disallowed goal bounding out the back of the net, the crowd rooted into place. Fritz magisterial in mud and water, still running; Kohlmeyer's fists balled definitely not. The referee puts the whistle to his lips. The Longines clock in the corner. A roar, a tremendous roar, shaking the stands, drowning out the shrill _peep_.

 _Aus! Aus! Aus! Aus!_ _Das Spiel ist Aus!_

Sound and grass and colour. The team is the team is the team, an incoherent huddle of limbs, riding on the swell of millions. Heart, passion, head, Weltmeister, we are alive again. The Miracle of Bern. Here it is, no more and no less than that.

Miro watches them, watches Herberger with his greatcoat and lopsided smile, watches the fans running onto the pitch, hats flying off. Drops to his knees and then the ground and watches them. The game is over, over, over, and he hasn't won the World Cup – he understands that now. But it's there to be won. It is there. _'54. '70. '90._ '10 –

Thomas is crashing straight for him, his mouth already wide open and ready to shout something, anything. Miro flicks his eyes up, watches Thomas's bright eyes, a grin so wide he's half-afraid it might go right off his face.

"- old man," Thomas is saying. Miro drops his head onto the grass and looks up at the sky. His shirt slick with rain and mud. Fingers around his wrist. Pulling away. Dark clouds, darker. His eyes squeezed shut. " _Danke_ ," says Thomas, someone, Miro himself. " _Danke._ "

 

 

*

 

 

"Are you _sleeping_?"

"I'm not," he says reflexively, opening his eyes.

Lukas stands over him, arms crossed, grinning. "You'd better get up soon," he says, leaning down to offer a hand. " _Bild_ will think you've gone mad with grief."

The Westfeldenstadion's lights are winking and dimming. There's no one else on the pitch. All is quiet. Miro takes Lukas's hand and pulls himself up, looking around. He was here – two hours, eight weeks ago – "I think I might have," he says faintly.

But it happened. It did. He remembers all of it. Spiez, the rain, the weight of the ball, Thomas.

Lukas raises an eyebrow. "Come on, Mirek," he says, not unkindly. "Let's get back on the bus."

For the first time Miro notices how off-kilter Lukas is, a quiet settling behind his eyes that isn't usually there. It's the semi-finals and they'll have to watch someone else lift the trophy on television. He puts his arm around him. Presses his forehead to his.

 

 

*

 

 

In the morning the whole hotel is lined up to clap them onto the coach, and there are fans still, crowded in the driveway that they almost can't move out. All along the roads people stop to honk at them. Everyone on the coach, preoccupied with their own thoughts, with the other match, begins to look up: listen. Listen. In Stuttgart runners have to go with the bus to check the spill of thousands and thousands of people, flags, camera flashes, tears, cheering that you can hear even through the windows of the bus. There is the colour of the sky, there are hands on hearts, there is joy, there are people and moments that you remember.

On and on and on it stretches. Like the whole of Germany is here with them. Basti hesitantly raises a hand to wave back, watching, more than anything else. "Everyone is waving," Metze says, numb. "Outstanding," Lukas says. "Outstanding." David just shakes his head. No words. "Unbelievable," Timo mutters, laughs, falters into silence as well. Don't speak. Listen. Look. Third place isn't so bad.

 

 

*

 

 

_Denk daran, du bist nicht allein, dam dam, dam dam._

They sing it all the way to Berlin. _Werner Liebrich, Schlafst du noch?_ Miro finds himself thinking once, smiles a little and tucks that memory away. The boisterous singing, the jokes in between. Life stays the same.

 

 

*

 

 

On the stage before the fan mile Miro wears his shirt that says _DANKE DEUTSCHLAND_ and Sportfreunde Stiller tells them that _vierundfünfzig, vierundsiebzig, neunzig, zweitausendsechs, werden wir Weltmeister sein._ Four more years. "You'll be so old by then," Lukas grins, nudging him in the side and nodding to the youth teams that've turned out to support them. "Better watch out for the young ones. One of them will have that Golden Boot before you know it."

Miro freezes.

A shock of curly hair, a ridiculous nose, eyes of two different colours. "Who's that?" he asks, gesturing.

"He looks familiar." Lukas squints. "Müller, I think, was it? I don't know where I know him from."  

It's just as well his attention is elsewhere, so he misses the stop-start of Miro's breath, a tingle that goes down to his fingertips. "Bayern, I think," Miro says, making sure to keep his voice as measured as he can. "Clever player. Finds space like no one else."

Lukas tilts his head back and gives him an odd look. "Yeah," he says slowly, like he's only just remembering. "Now that you mention it."

Thomas looks up, and maybe it's a trick of the light, but Miro could swear he gives him a terribly obnoxious wink before he's swept up with the rest of the crowd and vanishes.

On and off the stage they're singing.  _Beim ersten Mal war's ein Wunder, und das nächste Mal wird's ne Sensation._

Flags in the air. Hands in the sky. Lukas wanders off to bang the drums for a bit and Per pulls him into a group jump and Miro turns his head, looks out at the sea of people instead, a tightness in his chest he can't explain. _Ja, so stimmen wir alle ein. Mit dem Herz in der Hand und der Leidenschaft im Bein._ It is there. One day, some day. The future is gleaming and the sky is blue. The sky is red and black and gold.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end notes are -3465 so I guess stay tuned for chapter 2


	2. THE END NOTES THAT SHOULD BE IN THE END NOTES BOX OF WHAT SHOULD BE THE ONLY CHAPTER SHAKES FIST AT AO3 GIVE ME MORE SPACE GODDAMNIT!

Title from BJ's I've Loved These Days

[Deutschland ein Sommermärchen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=266Qscc61AY) for 2006 and [Das Wunder von Bern](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og1RAWvnpA0) for 1954 are both essential watching (only later did I realise they were done by the same bloke lmou) also Tor! by Uli Hesse

Miro things:  
\- [Ja and danke](https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/football/with-15-goals-so-far-miroslav-klose-to-world-cup-record/)  
\- [Blaubach](https://thesefootballtimes.co/2016/05/30/how-miroslav-klose-became-a-german-treasure/)  
\- [Hey ever wanted to learn about carpentry](http://www.basiccarpentrytechniques.com/3%20Continuous%20Footing%20Form%20Construction/3%20Continuous%20Footing%20Form%20Construction.html)? [Really?](http://www.carpentrypages.com/Fundamentals-Of-Carpentry.html)  
\- [Retirement tributes](https://abc7ny.com/sports/miroslav-klose-more-than-just-goals/255439/)  
\- Assorted features/interviews:  
\- Miro & Fritz: [x](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2002/jun/23/worldcupfootball2002.sport4) [x](http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/startseite/631949/artikel_klose_fritz-walter-hat-mir-fuer-tore-immer-wein-geschenkt.html)  
\- [Costa Rica & Ecuador goals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Ddw96Dv_U) (and also all of Miro's goals look the same)  
\- me, fretting: does Miro like potats  
Sabs:  
  
\- Rituals: 1:17:19 of Sommermärchen

History of foobaw:  
\- [Old Rules](https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/nine-football-laws-werent-always-place-crossbars-handball-referees/)  
\- [Old goalposts](https://www.harrodsport.com/advice-and-guides/a-history-of-the-football-goalpost)  
\- Training: [x](https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/sorry-bobby-becks-and-his-mates-would-have-run-rings-round-your-lot-136038.html) [x](http://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/football/weight-training-in-english-football-an-early-experiment/) [x](https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/world-cup-in-switzerland-german-team-undergoing-fitness-training-at-picture-id545744209) [x](https://content.assets.pressassociation.io/2018/06/22134420/d4466bcf-0309-420b-b99f-f3914985e708.jpg)  
\- [1954 Ball](https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/fifa-world-cup-balls-tango-jabulani-telstar-azteca-brazuca/4mbzo7cssvp21x4djfllk2cpx)

Songs:  
\- I've had [Drafi Deutscher](https://www.oktoberfest-songs.com/marmor-stein-und-eisen-bricht-lyrics.html) stuck in my head for days and I hate it thanks!!  
\- [Sportfreunde Stiller at the Fan Mile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gosJRIPbw7k) & [Lyrics](https://www.songtexte.com/songtext/sportfreunde-stiller/54-74-90-2010-1bc39dd0.html)  
\- Werner Liebrich at 32:35 of DWVB  
\- [Dieser Weg](http://www.metrolyrics.com/dieser-weg-lyrics-xavier-naidoo.html) (& 20:02 of Sommermärchen)

Kaiserslautern in the 50s:  
\- [Stadium](http://www.stadiumguide.com/wp-content/gallery/betzenberg/betzenberg2.jpg)  
\- [Stadium history](http://www.stadiumguide.com/fritzwalter/)  
\- [general history](https://www.fifa.com/news/y=2013/m=9/news=kaiserslautern-legend-between-heaven-and-hell-2177540.html)  
\- [Fritz](https://thesefootballtimes.co/2018/03/15/fritz-walter-the-icon-who-united-germany-after-world-war-two/)  
\- (there are pics of kaiserslautern training at the stadium in the 50s so I ASSUME SO)  
\- [the bar](https://www.facebook.com/Fantreff.Zum.12.Mann/)  
\- I knowww I had some reference images of 1950s apartments but I can't find them anymore rip  
\- [French zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Germany)

Fun inconsequential facts: Germ did play in Switzerland in both [2004](https://www.dfb.de/die-mannschaft/spiele-termine/?spieledb_path=%2Fmatches%2F434984) and [1951](https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/deutschland-team/1951/3/) so on either count Miro is correct

The briefing room dream & quotes are taken from Sommermärchen (1:26:45 - every time I see Merkel I just remember how shes seen basti nekkid - and 1:28:34) - I added the Engl thing to salvage some dignity

Munich in the 50s: [x](https://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/Stadtverwaltung/Referat-fuer-Stadtplanung-und-Bauordnung/Stadtentwicklung/stadt-bau-plan/city-building-plan/cbp_phase_5.html) [x](http://www.munichfound.com/archives/id/91/article/1747/)

Grünwalder Stadion was shared between Bayern and TSV 1860 from 1926 to 72:  
\- [Confirmation that the Germs used to train there](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-jul-07-1955-training-for-the-play-at-moscow-is-the-german-national-69295651.html) (at first I had them on a train straight to Spiez then I watched DWVB again and realised they all met at 'Grünwald' oops!!! and then I googled Grünwald and maps gave me POLAND I've never been s o confused)  
\- [Pic](https://mobile.twitter.com/oldgrounds/status/836596574767706115)  
\- [Ppl climbing roofs nearby to watch matches](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6b/36/f8/6b36f819afb9ee7a4a4a99f32b0fb289.jpg)  
\- the scoreboard: [x](https://www.stadionwelt.de/sw_stadien/images/news/1520246175.jpg) [x](https://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/medibigoff/23ac733189e21afb53cf121e0517b1ca/vig-4326161.jpg)  
\- [Darmstadt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952%E2%80%9353_Oberliga#Oberliga_S%C3%BCd) played TSV in the '53/'54 season cos they got RELEGATED

I don't suppose I need to footnote 'the ball is round' or 'the game lasts 90 minutes'

1954 Games:  
- [Full writeup](https://www.dfb.de/en/news/detail/world-cup-rewind-1954-the-miracle-of-bern-187757/?no_cache=1&cHash=a563c60db4834b6f134ea60afbbfb479)  
- [A nice interview w Horst Eckel abt 1954](http://bundesligafanatic.com/20120210/interview-of-the-week-horst-eckel-on-the-miracle-of-bern-fritz-walter-and-modern-football/)  
- [4-1 Turkey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sevavZvqcg)  
- [3-8 Hungary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjohMNXakHs)  
- [7-2 Turkey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mug3wlJFs8) ([Away kit](https://aztecretro.com/products/west-germany-1954-world-cup-away-shirt))  
- [2-0 Yugoslavia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D_CuY-Og9Q)  
- [The Final](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfjxgT6SDYk) ([Commentary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_FIFA_World_Cup_Final#Radio_commentaries) [Aus! Aus!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjh9rMaMY8U) [SUPER EMO PIC](https://shop.11freunde.de/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1200x698/17f82f742ffe127f42dca9de82fb58b1/h/l/hl_bern-wankdorf-1954__1200px.jpg)) ([Miro sittin there after 2014](http://simplyirenic.tumblr.com/post/91744462474/oblwankenobi-in-watching-klose-over-the-last))

[He put him paw around him neck!!](https://66.media.tumblr.com/041a2881ddd9334956319acf9c081da5/tumblr_o7w0hg7xR91thldh3o1_500.gif)

[Fritz rly made Horst put his chair back under the table lmou](https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/friedrich-fritz-walter-the-original-german-football-icon)

Was I thinking of Ghibli with the second dream? yep

In Hugh McIlvaney's book he mentions matches used to be reported with 'runners' - reports written by telegraph dispatches as the game went on

[Polish bro forehead touch](http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Argentina+v+Germany+2010+FIFA+World+Cup+Quarter+kpG3c6U4NeQm.jpg) hah deth

Just to show you how Extremely Knowledgeable I am about Germ:

HAPPY BOIRF ONCE AGAIN BB i loff u a lot and here is to chinese discorgi once reunited being reunited 5eva!!! i rly rly hope that u like this much keeses <3333


End file.
